Cheating?

September 22, 2017

Chemistry isn’t my thing. (There’s too little interest in what I think is the cool stuff – like the chemical designation for iron is Fe because the Latin word for iron is “ferrum,” which is a neat detail that most chemists are more than happy to overlook.)

But there’s one kind of chemistry that has me on the edge of my metaphorical seat – and that’s the story that will be told by the chemistry flowing through my veins and arteries.

You wouldn’t think that blood would be changed by sweat… but if I exercise regularly and sweat leaves my skin (once washed) kinda pearly and soft, then I also change the chemistry of my blood. Maybe the bad cholesterol goes down… and it’s the only way to make the good cholesterol go up.

And if I eat pumpkin seeds and DON’T eat a lot of sugar, then all the metabolic disco dancing going on at the cellular level gets tighter and faster and more like a hot babe in a silver metallic halter top, spinning like a top under purple neon. (There’s a fiesta going on in my cells, I’m convinced.) And that ought to have something to do with my fasting blood sugar.

Today at 8:45 in the morning, I have an appointment with my nurse practitioner. (My medical practice doesn’t trot out a doctor until something interesting happens; in the meantime, I repose utmost confidence in Margo Badman RPN, an oddly grumpy lady who shook her head over my lab results three months ago even after I pointed out that all the bad numbers had gotten better and all the good numbers had gone up. I like her pessimism; it makes me determined to impress her.)

Margo is insisting that we meet before the vampires in her lab extract some of my choice, tasty red corpuscles. Chip the nutritionist at Body Dynamics has requested a cortisol test (which apparently involves spitting in a tube for 24 hours – so gross as to be sort of entertaining) and she needs some justification for that. I have Chip’s explanatory email in digital and print form and am prepared to Take A Stand.

After that, it’s down the hall to have my blood drawn for the third time in six months. I can’t wait to get the results; I have been SO VIRTUOUS of late, and the lab work will measure whether what I think is virtue is enough to move the needle. (Haw – needle. Blood work. Get it?)

So here’s my question:

If I walk to my doctor’s appointment (which is about ten minutes away by foot), I will drive my fasting blood sugar down farther. And I am very competitive; I want that number at 100 or below, by damn. But is walking to the appointment cheating?

And am I willing to cheat??

Who would I be fooling, after all?

My innate laziness (which would infinitely prefer to drive) is warring against my innate competitiveness. I am on the horns of a dilemma. I walked to the appointment three months ago, but I didn’t to the initial one six months ago, which established my baseline. So in the modified words of Joe Strummer and the Clash – should I walk or should I drive? If I walk there could be trouble – if I drive, it could be double.

Oh. Clearly I have to dance. Right now. To the crazy dance party of chemistry. Whee!